The little timer says I've been logged in for a little over 10 hours. I don't think that counts the time I spend poking around here on my phone. Probably best that there is an accurate count of how much time I've been here recently. After seeing some stuff at Slice and flipping through Modernist Cuisine, I went and picked up a 1/4 inch think piece of plate steel and tried it out. It was an improvement but I was never happy with the dough. It always tore. The cornicione was weak. And I'm not proud to say I've resorted to using a rolling pin to just get the pizza on the table for dinner.

After poking around here for awhile, I wanted to try a dough with All Trumps and Glutenboy's recipe looked great. As luck would have it, a Restaurant Depot recently opened in Albany and I have a few friends with membership cards. Turns out they only sell it in 50 and 100 pound sacks....so I bought the 50 pound bag and didn't tell my wife about it until it was too late. I followed the percentages from the original post found here: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7761.msg66669.html#msg66669

I scaled the recipe down a little. I wanted to make six, 250 gram +/- dough balls with the hopes of stretching them into 12 inch pizzas. I went with 1000 grams of All Trumps, 611 grams of water, 2/3 tsp IDY and 25 grams of sea salt. I made the dough on Monday night with plans for a Friday evening bake with 4 of the dough balls. I'd give the other two ball a little more time in the fridge to see if there was a difference.

I don't know if it is the mixing technique or the flour or some combination of both, but this is the first time I felt like I was able to work with the dough and shape a pizza. I can't tell you how many video's I've watched only to tear the dough. No problems. I even tried to flip it between hands and kind of got the hand of that. I wouldn't have ever tried before because the result would have been more like a donut once my hand went straight through. I used Scalifini crushed tomatoes for the sauce and Trader Joe's mozzarella for the cheese. The olive pizza is for the kids. I'll eat it, but doubt I would ever pick just a black olive pizza.

Probably more excited than I should be. I can only imagine that hanging out here for another 10 hours will bring even more improvement. This site is incredible.

Boy...those look faantastic Jon! Great job on opening the dough...sure makes it a lot more fun when the dough works with you instead of against you, eh? I can remember the first time when I started getting it right....I'd call my GF into the kitchen an say "hey! look at this!" and I'd spin it up in the air like I thought I knew what I was doing....man that was funny!You learn fast, Jon, and I hope you enjoy your next 10 hours and many more after!

Thanks John. I think we are going to end up moving to a slightly bigger house - I've got 2 daughters that already fight in the bathroom and it's only going to get worse as they get older. Once we move (or add another bathroom), the oven moves to the top of the to-do list.

John K- what kind of oven do you have? When I first caught the fever, I was think of an Alan Scott barrel. Then I found Rado. From there I went to the Forno Bravo free plans and building my own oven with tweaks from other designs on their forum. Just to have one, I've already made a version of their Indispensable Tool - in case I have to start the build tomorrow, I wanted to be prepared. Recently, I've been leaning towards buying a Forno Bravo finished oven or kit because I'm not sure I'm going to be able to devote the time to a build. In my short time at pizzamaking.com, I've learned of the Four Grand Mere ovens and have started looking into those. We visit some friends outside Baltimore every so often and I'll have to plan a visit to Bread Stone Ovens while I'm down there.

John K- what kind of oven do you have? When I first caught the fever, I was think of an Alan Scott barrel. Then I found Rado. From there I went to the Forno Bravo free plans and building my own oven with tweaks from other designs on their forum. Just to have one, I've already made a version of their Indispensable Tool - in case I have to start the build tomorrow, I wanted to be prepared. Recently, I've been leaning towards buying a Forno Bravo finished oven or kit because I'm not sure I'm going to be able to devote the time to a build. In my short time at pizzamaking.com, I've learned of the Four Grand Mere ovens and have started looking into those. We visit some friends outside Baltimore every so often and I'll have to plan a visit to Bread Stone Ovens while I'm down there.

Jon,

About 2 years ago I was going mad. I had modified the crap out of my grill, and had been cooking on it for a couple of years and I was "ready" for a WFO. I had the FB plans, ready to build it myself, so on and so forth. Then I was about 12 hours away from getting a guy to ship an oven via ebay and then he got squirelly, so that fell through. And the then the cost for shipping of materials from FB was just so high that I kept on hemming and hawing. (I live in NC and FB is in CA, as you know),

So long and short of it, I just came across this guy selling on ebay and he was super cheap, and minimal shipping cost from NJ. That was about a year and a half ago. Original configuration was on our wooden back porch. Subsequently did a backyard remodel and made a "proper"exterior for the oven. Since it is refractory/modular I was able to construct it in its "temporary" home, then take it apart and store it in pieces in my garage while the backyard was being done. Then when its new home was done, I just put it back together again. Was expecting a thermally fractured mess but this did not prove to be the case!

Bootom line is that there is "good" and "not perfect" with the oven. I cannot say that there is anything "bad" at all about it --- simply that it is not an Acunto or SF, or Bread Stone, or Grand Mere. My "next"oven will be one of those first two.

I can only speak to the oven that I have, which is: [url]http://www.grillsnovens.com/products/wood-fired-pizza-ovens/wood-burning-oven.html/[url]

Eugene Briskin (?sp) is a very good guy to deal with. He is the owner I think. And don't forget that on top of that $2200, you need: insulation, a heavy duty stand for the oven (my first was made of 4 x 4's), chimney material, and some sort of way to finish the oven.

Personally I would not want a smaller oven, but that's just me. We will have 10-15 people over at a time without blinking, and a smaller oven would be tough.

John, I think we're living parallel lives. I've got a Weber kettle out back that I've sliced up pretty well. I was thinking of trying to turn it into one of those propane pizza grills, LBE I think is the abbreviation. I've never hear of that wood oven brand. Add another one to the list. I have heard of Acunto and SF since getting here. I guess well see how much money I have in my WFO slush fund when the time comes....